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Beth Kirby of Local Milk carries her Southern heritage -- and the ingredients, dishes, and recipes that come with it -- with her wherever she goes. Every other Monday, that place is here.

Today: If you're going to stray from a traditional buttermilk biscuit, this is the way to do it.

I’m a buttermilk biscuit purist, and mine usually have exactly five ingredients in them: flour, salt, baking powder, butter, and buttermilk. That’s it -- and I pride myself on their simplicity. But sometimes the leaves are falling all at once around you in huge shivering gusts, and tendrils of autumnal smoke dare you to put pumpkin in all the things. These biscuits are a happy marriage of the warmth and sweetness of pumpkin pie and the savory, flaky layers of buttermilk biscuits.

Lightly sweetened with honey and flecked with sea salt, these aren’t heavy handed, overly sweet, or dense; they’re light and fluffy, the perfect way to have a sweet fix in the morning without feeling like you made a really dubious decision. I like to serve them with lightly salted cultured butter whipped with honey, and then I like to proceed to sit back and allow myself that special satisfaction afforded to the home cook­ -- the smiles, sighs, and are-you-freaking-kidding-me looks as people dig in. The pleasure of serving people buttermilk biscuits is, in my opinion, a unique pleasure in the arena of feeding people.

Heretofore the province of southern women, these biscuits are now available to anyone who’s mindful with their dough. The secret to making these is to pay attention to the dough -- it should be tacky and shaggy, but not so wet you can’t work with it. I like to add all but a little of the buttermilk and only use it if the dough seems dry.

Once all the dry bits are mixed in, stop mixing! That’s the first step toward keeping the biscuits tender. After that, you gently pat the dough out to about one and a half inches thick, fold it, rotate it, and repeat three times. After you’ve created all those beautiful layers inside your biscuits, you then ever-so-gently roll them out with a wooden rolling pin (I find marble far, far too heavy for biscuits) or pat them out with your fingers (an equally solid method!) until the dough is an inch thick. Cut, bake, and serve, and then soak up honey butter with warm corners of a freshly baked biscuit as well as a little bit of adulation from your loved ones.

I made these yesterday, but found the batter to be way too wet to roll out. I ended up just making drop-style biscuits and they were good, but more like a scone. I doubled the recipe, so i wonder if something got messed up by that.

I have amended the recipe with weights measurements and for future reference if not using weights because the amount of flour in two cups can be so variable, add all but the last 1/4 cup of the pumpkin mixture and then add that only if it seems dry. This should be a sticky dough. But not super wet and impossible. Using a well floured work surface and sprinkling the top with flour should render it totally pat/rollable. I'm so sorry for your difficulty, and I hope the clarifications help! Please let me know how they turn out regardless!

Ok. Just to make sure I just retested these *twice*! The measurements are definitely accurate. If using volumetric measurements for the flour there's a good chance it could be under so as I said in the above comment if you can't weigh your flour add all but the last 1/4 of the wet ingredients before proceeding. That said this is supposed to be a sticky, very moist dough. But it should not be impossible to work with! Hope it all helps.

You retested them twice since our comments? WOW! :) thanks! So, I kept adding flour to the counter and the top of the dough and folded it over itself until I could pat out the dough without it sticking to my hands & the counter. It was probably an additional 1/2 cup of flour. Initially the dough was so sticky that I had a ton of dough stuck to my hands and I thought it was a lost cause. I lost at least one biscuit that way. But, with the additional flour, I was able to cut them and bake them. The flavor was delicious but of course the texture was probably changed a little because of all the extra flour. They weren't "heavy" but not really light like I would expect a biscuit to be. My husband said they were more like an English muffin texture. I will try again either using weight or the other method you suggested.

I usually sour my milk with lemon if I'm making a buttermilk sub. But I think vinegar could work if you use the right one, like maybe apple cider vin? a) sometimes I make my own pumpkin puree. Super simple. I either steam the chunks or roast them depending on the flavor I want... then puree! If I don't have time I use organic pumpkin in a BPA free can!

Since I dislike buying food I won't use all of, I nearly never use buttermilk. It's so easy to sour milk instead—I've even done it with balsamic vinegar, with wonderful results. I was just wondering if you've ever noticed a flavor difference when you use soured milk instead of buttermilk.

I'm going to look for a proper eating pumpkin at the farmers market next week and give these a try. Thanks again!